December 2024 – The Saboscrivner

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli (https://www.instagram.com/mamanapoliwinterpark/) is a new business that opened this past summer in Winter Park, just south of Fairbanks Avenue on State Road 17-92. It is a cute café with delicious coffee, pastries, snacks, sandwiches, rustic-looking pizzas, and shelves laden with Italian groceries. There are a few booths inside for lingering over a cappuccino and any number of Italian delicacies.

You can see some of their premade panini sandwiches above the deli meats: the Vesuvio, Procida, Ischia, and Capri. If you right-click on the photo below and open it in a new tab, you can probably even make out the ingredients listed for each.

This glass case includes fresh cannoli, tarts, macarons, and cake slices.

Here are gorgeous pistachio, Nutella, apricot, and almond croissants.

Bombolone are like Italian doughnuts, and these all had different fillings: Bavarian cream, apricot, Nutella, and pistachio cream (which seems to be becoming a trendy dessert ingredient).

And here are flaky, shell-shaped sfogliatella pastries, with a light, crispy texture and a smooth cream filling with the slightest hint of lemon.

M’ama Napoli has several shelves of imported Italian groceries, including some nice-looking fruit preserves, pickled peppers, and tomato sauces.

For the first order I ever brought home, I selected some cream-filled conchiglia puff pastries and a croissant filled with almond paste (marzipan) for my wife who loves almond-flavored anything. While I still give the edge to Benjamin French Bakery in Thornton Park for the best croissants in Orlando, my wife and I enjoyed all these pastries.

I also got an incredible sandwich on freshly baked, fluffy focaccia bread, the Toto. I’m sure it wasn’t named for the yacht rock-adjacent band that featured David Paich, Steve Lukather, and the Porcaro brothers, but it was full of paper-thin slices of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, arugula, tomatoes, and shaved parmigiano cheese. I loved it. It was huge, too!

Here is a better photo of the Toto sandwich from our second visit. My wife doesn’t share my obsession with sandwiches, but she likes good bread, prosciutto, fresh mozz, and arugula — pretty much everything but the tomatoes — so she had most of this one.

That time, I tried the Maradona sandwich, with salami, fresh mozzarella, and arugula. The salami was really high-quality, but since I ate this sandwich at home, I plussed it up with the tomatoes from my wife’s Toto sandwich, some hot cherry peppers, and balsamic glaze.

And this was a special sandwich that was only available that day, with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, shaved parmesan cheese, and some kind of creamy sauce that gave it a bit of a funky flavor, but not unpleasant. It was an umami bomb, though!
I would probably skip this one in the future, just because the Toto is so great, and there are lots of other sandwich options too — not just on focaccia, but pressed paninis as well. Maybe I’ll try a focaccia sandwich with mortadella next time, which is like very posh bologna that sometimes contains pistachios.

There are only a few parking spaces behind the building, off busy State Road 17-92, but I’ve had decent parking karma on my two visits to M’ama Napoli so far (which is more than I can say for many of Orlando’s most popular dining districts). Check it out, and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed, especially if you get the Toto or one of the other focaccia sandwiches!

The Saboscrivner’s Top Ten TV Shows of 2024

Did anyone else feel like this was a relatively slow year for television and an even slower year for movies? I watched several new shows and got into some old ones, but I wanted to boost the signal on my ten favorite TV shows that rose above the rest in 2024. What were your favorite TV shows this year? Take a look at my list first, but then let me know yours!

Two brief notes, before we begin:

Normally Fargo, season 5 would have made the list, but it mostly aired in late 2023, and only the final three episodes aired in 2024. As a result, I did not rank it this year, but it did make my Top Ten TV Shows of 2023.
English Teacher, season 1 would have made the list, until I read this Vulture article from December 17, 2024, about the behavior of the show’s creator and star. I can no longer recommend or even watch the show in good conscience.

Finally, here we go!

10. Interior Chinatown, season 1 (Hulu) – This was such a pleasant surprise! It’s a twisty crime show, a parody of Law and Order, and a deconstruction of Asian-American identity, especially in terms of assimilation and representation. But it was also something more — something far weirder and harder to explain. I always appreciate metafiction, breaking of the fourth wall, and stories that confound your expectations, ending in complete different genres than they began. If you are patient and willing to suspend your disbelief, this might be a show for you. Also, it was nice to see Chloe Bennett from Agents of SHIELD again, even if I kept thinking she looks like Aubrey Plaza in every shot.

9. Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 12 (HBO) – It helps that my brother, my wife, and I started binge-watching this show for the first time in late 2023, catching up just in time to watch the series finale when it aired in April 2024. The cantankerous curmudgeon Larry David is a comedy genius who elevated two sitcoms to legendary status: Seinfeld and Curb. After finally getting around to watching Curb, it was clear Larry was the brains of the operation and the creative force behind Seinfeld back in the ’90s, with how hacky Jerry Seinfeld’s stand-up has always been, and how bitter and humorless he seems these days. Larry (on TV and in real life) might be an anhedonic altacocker, but he can spin laughs from the most awkward, unpleasant situations and create lasting catch-phrases and hilarious situations like nobody’s business. Even though I still have all 12 seasons and 24 years of Curb fresh in my head, the final season that aired in 2024 did not disappoint or drop the ball.

8. Mr. & Mrs. Smith, season 1 (Amazon Prime Video) – I am a giant Donald Glover fanboy. I’ve seen him live twice — performing stand-up comedy in Miami Beach in 2012, and holding a sold-out arena in the palm of his hand as Childish Gambino earlier this year in Tampa. He is The Man, so I was going to watch and enjoy this show no matter what. It will be interesting to see if it continues, and if so, if he’ll be back. I was more intrigued by the larger world that was hinted at than most of the “missions of the week,” but I don’t want to say too much to spoil anything. Like Glover’s previous show Atlanta (which I absolutely loved), it was often strange, but understated at the same time, creating a very unreal-feeling reality.

7. Hey! (EW) (YouTube) – The most obscure thing on this list, Hey! (EW) is a free, short, weekly Internet show where comedian/raconteur/former professional wrestler R.J. City interviews different AEW wrestlers, sometimes for just ten minutes at a time, but usually (hopefully) longer. Sometimes they stay completely in character, sometimes they “break kayfabe” and reveal a bit of their everyday personalities, and sometimes they threaten him. R.J. is one of the funniest people out there — quick and sarcastic with a razor-sharp wit, and excellent at improv — and he is constantly needling these wrestlers, forcing them to break character, cracking them up, challenging them, or pulling them along in weird and inspired conversational directions. He is also a writer and producer behind the scenes at AEW, using his encyclopedic knowledge of classic cinema to shape and mold some of my favorite storylines (including a feud between female wrestlers Toni Storm and her protégé/betrayer Mariah May, inspired by Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve). I love how Hey! (EW) pulls back the curtain on the wrestling business and sets some of that seriousness aside, but it wouldn’t work without R.J. City. He is better at his job than any of the big name talk show hosts and funnier than the vast majority of professional comics. Plus, he also trash-talked the tired, washed-up, MAGA-supporting Undertaker, so he gets even more cool points from me.

6. X-Men ’97, season 1 (Disney+) – A nice introduction to radical politics disguised as superhero action and melodrama, with plenty of rousing moments for all your favorite characters. As a teenager, I gave up on the original ’90s animated series after the first season, but I appreciated how modern, relevant, and allegorical these new stories were (as X-Men stories should always be), while still fitting perfectly into the original continuity. Even if you’ve never seen a previous X-Men cartoon or any of the movies or read any of the comics, you could probably watch this first season of X-Men ’97 and get everything. If you did grow up with the original animated series (which was responsible for shaping and forming the sexuality of a bunch of people I know, and probably people you know too), rest assured that X-Men ’97 is definitely written for that same audience, only paying respect to the fact that we are adults now. It went hard at various points — harder than it had to, and props to the creative team for that — but I appreciated them writing with grownups in mind and remembering that the X-Men don’t uphold the status quo like other superheroes, but fight the good fight against it. “The name is Gambit, mon ami. Remember it.”

5. Fallout, season 1 (Amazon Prime Video) – Usually post-apocalyptic shows are so dour and dire, but Fallout was ridiculously fun by blending much-needed, tension-breaking humor with all the action and horror. I’ve never played the video games, but I have a feeling I would like them, since I loved the first season of the show so much. The retro-futuristic aesthetic and 1950s soundtrack differentiated Fallout from so many similar stories, and the actors brought their A-game. Kyle McLachlan already played one of my favorite TV characters of all time (Special Agent Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks), and Walton Goggins has played at least a couple of them (Boyd Crowder on Justified and Uncle Baby Billy on The Righteous Gemstones). They were great here too, but Ella Purnell knocked it out of the park as the lead — sweet, innocent, wide-eyed, and naïve, but able to fend for herself and kick ass as needed. Okey-dokey.

4. The Girls on the Bus, season 1 (Max) – This light, refreshing dramedy about four female reporters covering a presidential campaign was so much fun in an ugly, exhausting election year. I am a sucker for stories about crusading journalists solving mysteries and uncovering corruption, and while The Girls on the Bus served up plenty of that, it also focused heavily on the female friendships. Melissa Benoist (best known as Supergirl) was delightful as always, and my favorite actress of all time (and celebrity crush), Carla Gugino, brought the gravitas as the most experienced and successful political journalist. By the way, I met her this year and told her my wife and I loved this show. It’s a damn shame it was already canceled, ending with at least one major unresolved plotline, but don’t let that stop you from giving this show the chance it deserves.

3. Everybody’s in L.A., season 1 (Netflix) – The late-night talk show is such a tired, outdated format, but this show proved it could be fun, hilarious, and even exciting by shaking up the ancient formula. Find a great host (John Mulaney, one of my favorite stand-up comics ever), surround him with celebrities who are either funny or have good stories (not just there to hype their latest projects), also interview regular people who have interesting jobs or are experts in unique fields, bring on cool bands playing their beloved hits, show off a truly singular American city in remote, pre-taped segments, and film the whole thing live. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to L.A. for work a few times now, and I marked out for some of the hyper-specific local references that I actually GOT. It made me feel like an honorary Angeleno! I believe Mulaney will be hosting more talk shows for Netflix in the year to come, so I’m glad this wild experiment was so successful.

2. Sugar, season 1 (Apple TV+) – This was 100% my shit: a stylish neo-noir set in gorgeous Los Angeles, starring a protagonist who is a morally upstanding, noble, empathetic hero — the kind of character who does good because he is good. Private detective John Sugar transcends the pantheon of two-fisted, hard-boiled film noir gumshoes, many of whom are morally ambiguous antiheroes. Instead, I’d rank him alongside the aforementioned Dale Cooper, Superman, Captain America, Captain Christopher Pike, and even Ted Lasso, all uncomplicated good dudes. I could watch mensches like this all day — protecting the innocent, standing up to bullies, and throwing down when someone pushes them too far. Just be forewarned: Sugar has a pretty major twist that may have been spoiled for you already, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I implore you to watch the show without researching anything about it beforehand. I’m begging you to take my word for it, and you’ll have a much richer experience.

1. Bad Monkey, season 1 (Apple TV+) – This was also 100% my shit: a fun, sunny crime comedy set in Key West, Miami, and the Bahamas, based on a novel by one of my lifelong favorite writers, the legendary Miami Herald columnist and crime fiction author Carl Hiaasen. Like his contemporary, the late, great Elmore Leonard, Hiaasen excels in writing likable, down-on-their-luck protagonists and hilariously stupid, occasionally vicious criminals. Bad Monkey was a blast — a great mystery that kept us guessing and laughing, thanks to showrunner Bill Lawrence (of Scrubs and Ted Lasso fame). The entire cast was on point, but Vince Vaughn as the loquacious lead has never been better, and the otherworldly Jodie Turner-Smith needs to be cast as Storm in a GOOD X-Men movie right away.

For anyone who made it this far, here are my lists from previous years:

Top Thirteen TV Shows of 2023
Top Fifteen TV Shows of 2022
Top Twenty TV Shows of the Decade (2011-2021)
Top Ten TV Shows of 2021
Top Twenty TV Shows of 2020
Top Twenty TV Shows of 2019
Top Ten Movies of 2019
Top Ten TV Shows of 2018
Top Ten Movies of 2018

Genghis Cohen (Los Angeles)

When I visited Los Angeles for work earlier this year, my supervisor and I went to the “New York-style” Chinese restaurant Genghis Cohen (https://www.genghiscohen.com/), which first opened in 1983. In addition to the truly great name, I chose the restaurant because it has special significance to me as a comedy nerd. There was an entire episode of Seinfeld where the characters were stuck at a Chinese restaurant, waiting for a table that never became available. That episode was instrumental in forming that sitcom’s (somewhat overused) description of “a show about nothing.” Co-creator, genius comedy writer, and awe-inspiring altacocker Larry David, the brains of the operation and the main reason anyone still fondly remembers Seinfeld today, was inspired by a similar experience at Genghis Cohen in L.A., so there you go.

We started out by sharing these excellent pan-fried pork pot stickers. There was nothing unique about them, but fried pot stickers are always a delicious appetizer, and you can never go wrong with them.

My supervisor chose the happy family, a dish I never would have considered ordering myself, although it really looked and smelled great. It included chicken, shrimp, barbecue pork, carrots, cabbage, onions, bean sprouts, and crunchy fried noodles, all stir-fried together. He really liked it.

And while I had other dishes in mind, I absolutely had to order the shalom pork, with sliced barbecue pork (think char siu), onions, cabbage, and green bell peppers, all stir-fried together with barbecue sauce (not the sweet and smoky American style barbecue sauce, of course). Not only was the Genghis Cohen name hilarious to me, but so was the shalom pork, so I couldn’t resist.

Since I am lucky enough to take work trips to L.A. twice a year, I plan my restaurant excursions as far in advance as possible, considering I never rent a car out there and usually don’t have much down time to play tourist. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it back to Genghis Cohen, but I’m really glad I went, and that my supervisor was willing to join me. There’s a helpful hint for aspiring restauranteurs: if you open a place with a funny, punny name, you will probably get at least one customer.

Prato

The upscale Italian restaurant Prato (https://www.prato-wp.com/) is a mainstay of Winter Park’s tony Park Avenue for good reason. Chef and co-owner Brandon McGlamery (also of the excellent Luke’s Kitchen and Bar in Maitland) has always served top-notch food in gorgeous surroundings. This is not a typical “red sauce” Italian-American restaurant, so don’t expect spaghetti and meatballs or red and white checkered tablecloths. But even though Prato is a cut above, it isn’t snooty or snobby, and the comfort food truly comforts.

I had not been back to Prato in years, due in part to the difficulty of parking on Park Avenue (ironic, eh?) and a lot of bad timing. Sometimes I’d find myself there in the off time between lunch and dinner service, where Prato only offered a limited menu, and one of the most famous pasta dishes in Orlando was unavailable. This review was from a recent visit with my wife for lunch, which I timed just so I could try the legendary pasta for the first time, after years of reading hype about it online.

We started out with pretzel-crusted calamari, fried to golden-brown perfection. I always note that too many restaurants overcook their squid tubes and tentacles until they are chewy and rubbery, but these were really tender, as they should be. We had tried these before, too many years ago, and these were just as good as they had always been. I always appreciate dipping sauces (salsa rosa and grain mustard aioli), but this calamari didn’t even need them. That didn’t stop me from dipping, though!

After how much we enjoyed the beef tartare on a recent trip to Luke’s, we decided to trust Chef McGlamery and ordered the carne cruda at Prato as well, to compare and contrast them. It is raw beef (which tastes great and must be the highest quality to avoid safety concerns), topped with a farm-fresh egg, grated horseradish, and romanesco conserva. I realize romanesco is a relative of the cauliflower that grows in stunning fractal patterns, but I didn’t see any of that vegetable, so I wondered if the menu might have meant romesco, which is a sauce made from cooking down tomatoes, roasted red peppers, garlic, and almonds. It was also served with crunchy toasted focaccia bread slices for scooping up the meat or spreading it onto the toast. We loved it, just as we loved the beef tartare at Luke’s.

Here’s a close-up of that amazing carne cruda. The meat was so tender and flavorful in a way we rarely get to experience, since everyone cooks their meat (and should continue to do so, don’t get me wrong).

I forgot to mention that we came to Prato during weekend brunch hours, being sure to be there as it opened to avoid a long wait. After the savory appetizers, my wife went with a sweet dish: perfect little pancakes topped with freshly made ricotta cheese and blueberry compote (which strikes me as more of a dessert than a breakfast dish, but millions of brunchers will disagree). She adored it.

And I finally got to try the legendary pasta dish, mustard spaghettini “cacio e pepe.” I fully admit to being a red sauce guy, since that’s the Italian food I was raised eating. I am always drawn to rich bolognese and spicy arrabbiata sauces, so I rarely order cacio e pepe on menus, even though it can be so luxurious and decadent despite its relative simplicity (just Pecorino Romano cheese — the cacio — and black pepper — the pepe). This version was anything but simple, though. It included mustard in there somewhere, but it’s subtle, and you definitely won’t detect the brightness of yellow mustard or anything horseradishy, so don’t worry about that. I love mustard (and even review mustards on this blog), so that was the main thing that had me intrigued for so many years.
This house-made pasta also includes balsamic vinegar (another favorite ingredient of mine), radicchio, a spicy and bitter vegetable that looks like red and white cabbage and is sometimes called Italian chicory, and speck, a cured and lightly smoked pork leg (think of ham or bacon) from the cold and mountainous South Tyrol province in northeastern Italy. If you are familiar with geography, you might guess that there is some German or Austrian influence to this particular cured meat, and you’d be right. Also, the mountains are called the Dolomites, but Rudy Ray Moore had nothing to do with it.

This was a gorgeous and delicious pasta dish that surpassed all the hype. I make pretty great pasta dishes at home, but I had never had anything quite like this, and I was so happy to finally try it, after all these years. It was one of my favorite things I ate in 2024, that’s for sure.

I don’t know when we will return to Prato, but as tempting as it always is to try new things on every visit, I am obsessed enough with the mustard spaghettini “cacio e pepe” that I will probably order it again and again in the future. It’s like nothing I’ve ever tried before. Leave it to me to be late to the party and then never want to leave! But I’m sure Prato being great is no big surprise or secret to anyone else in Winter Park or Orlando. It has a swanky vibe that would be perfect for a date night or just a nice dinner out. The hardest parts will be parking nearby and figuring out what to order, but hopefully I have already helped you with the second challenge.

Sushi Yama

Sushi Yama (https://www.facebook.com/p/sushiyamaOrlando-61554754973187/) is one of a handful of all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants in Orlando. I used to love Mikado Japanese Sushi Buffet in Altamonte Springs, but nobody else ever wants to go there with me, and I fully admit it isn’t as good as it once was.

More recently, I took my wife to another all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, but one where you order off a menu and everything is brought fresh to your table, rather than grabbing premade sushi rolls and nigiri off a buffet. That was a truly horrendous experience, to the point where it almost seemed like a prank or a comedy sketch — terrible food and cartoonishly inept service. I love sushi, but that was the first time I ever “hate-ate” anything (similar to hate-watching a movie or TV show out of bewildered fascination or the hope that it might improve). I never reviewed that place because I had nothing nice to say about it, but to nobody’s surprise, it did not last.

As a result of that execrable experience at a completely different restaurant, when I discovered Sushi Yama and wanted to try it, my wife wanted nothing to do with it. I ended up going by myself for lunch, after checking in at the wonderful Gods & Monsters comic book and collectible store on International Drive. Well, I had a grand time, and I will be happy to go back anytime, for any of my friends and acquaintances who also like sushi and good deals.

I had a good feeling when I was greeted by a human-sized maneki neko (lucky cat) at the entrance.

Here are photos of the menu. At the time I visited, the all-you-can-eat lunch was $20.95 (the price of two to three rolls at most regular Japanese restaurants), and you can choose from so many great options.

In addition to the sushi on the previous page, lunch also includes hot, fresh appetizers, soups, fried tempura dishes, fried rice and noodles, and even teriyaki, all prepared fresh in the kitchen. If you’re the least bit curious about going but don’t actually like sushi or have friends or family who don’t, there is plenty for you folks to choose from as well.

I was told that the kitchen would be faster than the sushi chefs, so I might want to order something from the kitchen to tide myself over. Instead of ordering the vegetable tempura (with broccoli, zucchini, sweet potato, and an onion ring), since it was all one price for the lunch, I asked if I could just get onion rings, and that was totally cool. Ring the Alarm! Leave it to me to go out for all-you-can-eat sushi and still end up with onion rings. But they were terrific, and the tempura batter was a perfect consistency and stayed in place.

I love ornate rolls with multiple contrasting ingredients (sorry, sushi purists!), so I ordered several Chef’s Special rolls, and they all came on this gorgeous platter, arranged beautifully.

This assortment included:

- Rainbow roll – a California roll topped with tuna, salmon, whitefish, and avocado
- Salmon run roll -a roll containing eel and spicy krab, topped with salmon, masago fish eggs, and eel sauce
- Baby tiger roll – a roll containing spicy tuna and cucumber, topped with salmon, avocado, masago fish eggs, and tempura crunch
- SnowMan roll – a roll containing spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, and avocado, topped with snow krab, masago fish eggs, tempura crunch, and and eel sauce
- Spicy tuna roll (done as a hand roll, in the bottom left corner above)

Here they are again from a different angle. Beautiful!

I also got three pieces of nigiri: smoked salmon, red snapper (tai), and eel unago), which were all fresh and tasty.

I should note that you get a penalty for ordering a bunch of food and not finishing it (including the rice that is part of nigiri sushi), as you should, because I consider wasting food a shanda. For the carb-conscious among us, Sushi Yama charges more at dinnertime, but you can also get sashimi — just the slices of fresh, raw fish without the rice underneath.

It’s too bad Sushi Yama is across town on the north end of International Drive, or I would go there quite often. As it is, I will return whenever I can, which won’t be often enough. But whenever I have a chance to stop by Gods & Monsters, I will make it a point to arrive hungry and head straight there afterwards. I’ll try to go for dinner in the future to take advantage of that sashimi, too!